Ron Amundson’s Political Blog

A recurrent problem with the response to the oil spill is that no one wants to fess up. Apart from the legal aspects, the incredibly low science literacy both in the media, as well as the general public pretty much makes much of this deal as a “You can’t handle the truth” scenario.

The truth

The ultimate truth is the following. There are no easy answers, and there are 50 kazillion unknowns. There are tons of theories, and thousands of people working on answers and there are still kazillions of unknowns, and answers are going to take time, and some may never be known. In addition, solutions are going to require widespread failures and massive numbers of iterations. No matter how the legal, the managerial, the political, the agendized folks want to spin it… the laws of nature are immovable, and they reign supreme.

Human Fear

Then add in the fact that fear is running rampant, whether it be those who see the writing on the wall that everything will change as the spill is right in front of them, and others, who see that things might change, and their current lifestyle may no longer be sustainable, even if the oil spill is thousands of miles away.

I also think there is a synergistic multiplier effect between fear and uncertainty, combined with failure after failure leading to despair and resignation which will likely have profound and long lasting effects on society at large.

As a tech guy… Its easy to discount this fear aspect, but I think such will play out in technical and political judgment calls for many years to come… and that then plays back into the technical realm. Case in point, nuclear paranoia is incredibly strong post three mile island. Industrial contamination is a much greater danger, but short of highly localized arenas, most consider it a non-issue, and economics/finance/jobs are more important. It leads to a question of where will petro end up in 10 years.

Vested Interests Abound on all Sides

Then to add insult to injury, there are those with vested financial and political interests of one type, who wish to down play any and all downsides. Likewise, there are those with different ideological, and political interests, who wish to play up any and all downsides. Lastly, there are those who see such the spill as being so distant, it will have no effect on them whatsoever, and is nothing to be excited about.

If one chooses to play down potential issues, or ignore them completely, the obvious danger is if they are wrong the costs could be extreme, ie death and destruction. By the same token, over playing such could create un-necessary fear (already on top of the current fears), it shoots holes in future credibility of the messenger, and it runs the risk of potential economic hardship.

Such vested interests often end up muddying the waters from a technical solution point of view. Even from a political point of view, its really muddy… just look at the FCC, more lawyers than engineers… and they are to address technical issues? Go figure

The solution?

The next generation will have a much clearer view and armchair quarterbacking likely will present a multitude of solutions. In the short term… some of the next gen is already here, in grade school. Dead animals, dead beaches and the like will start to color their thought processes in short order. No matter how much they are sheltered or are attempted to be led one way or another… images engrained early on will play a huge role in the development of their thought processes, their morality, and their hope. In other words, these youngsters will see through the BS, the spin, the garbage of today. They likely will see the truth long before the rest of us.